A Religious Corporation's Assets Come into View Only as It Nears Dissolution — 83.4 Billion Yen at Liquidation and the Three-Stage Design of Disclosure

In July 2026, in the liquidation of the former Unification Church (the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification), which had received a dissolution order, the liquidator put the corporation's assets at just over 83.4 billion yen[1]. That is the figure as of the dissolution in March 2026.

The dissolution order took effect on 4 March

The sequence of dates is worth pinning down. According to the official site opened by the liquidator, the immediate appeal was dismissed on 4 March 2026, and the dissolution order took effect the same day[2]. The liquidation is being carried out by Hisashi Ito, an attorney at Abe, Ikubo & Katayama[2].

What the procedure consists of is set by statute

What the liquidator does is also set out in law: concluding current affairs, collecting claims, discharging debts, and determining the residual assets[2], together with at least three notices in the official gazette[2] calling on creditors to file. The size of the assets is fixed only through that investigation by the liquidator. The 83.4 billion figure emerged as its result.

The size of the figure is not the point

Yet it is too early to see this 83.4 billion as disclosed "for the first time." A court-ordered dissolution of a religious corporation is one of only a few cases, following Aum Shinrikyo (1996). What deserves attention is less the size of the figure than the fact that a religious corporation's assets barely came into public view until the final stage of dissolution.

Stage one — only interested parties may look

How are a religious corporation's assets handled in ordinary times? Article 25 of the Religious Corporations Act, administered by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, requires a property inventory and income statement to be drawn up each fiscal year and filed with the competent agency. But only interested parties such as believers who are found to have a legitimate interest may inspect them[3], and the public has no right to. The agency, too, is to respect religious characteristics and refrain from interfering with religious freedom. In ordinary times, a religious corporation's finances are all but invisible from the public's side.

Open the text and three conditions stack up. Article 25(3) makes the duty to allow inspection arise only where the applicant is "a believer or other interested party" and where, in addition, there is a "legitimate interest" in inspecting and the request is found not to be "for an improper purpose"[4]. Who you are, why you want to look, whether that motive is proper. Unless all three hold, no duty to allow inspection arises under the text.

The documents to be kept at the office are six kinds: the rules and the certificate of authentication, the roster of officers, the inventory of property and statement of receipts and payments, documents on precinct buildings, documents and records on the proceedings of decision-making bodies, and documents on any business carried on[5]. Of these, what is filed with the competent authority is four kinds — the officer roster, the property inventory and accounts, precinct buildings, and business — within four months of the end of each fiscal year[6]. Preparation itself is set at three months.

And Article 25(5) presses the point that, in handling these documents, the competent authority "shall take particular care to respect the religious characteristics and customs of the religious corporation and not to impede freedom of religion"[7]. In ordinary times, a religious corporation's finances are all but invisible from the public's side.

In between there is a power to ask, but entry needs consent

Between ordinary times and dissolution, there is not nothing. Article 78-2 provides that, where the competent authority finds grounds for suspicion, it may demand reports and have its officials question the persons concerned[8]. Yet the text fences that power about several times over.

Entering the premises to ask questions requires the consent of the representative officer and other persons concerned[8]. Exercising it requires prior consultation with the Religious Juridical Persons Council[9]. And paragraph 6 states expressly that the power "shall not be construed as having been granted for criminal investigation"[10]. The means to look exists, but without the other side's consent one cannot even enter the building.

Stage two — designation makes it quarterly

This non-disclosure moves when dissolution is sought. In 2023, a special-measures law for victim relief (Act No. 89 of 2023) created the designated religious corporation. Once designated, the filing of the property inventory tightens from yearly to quarterly, and disposing of real estate requires notice to the competent agency a month in advance and a public notice[11]. And the religious corporations designated under this system are, by report, so far only the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification[12]. The system was built, but the only case in which it has fully operated is still this one.

Stage three — liquidation surfaces it, but not as a duty

The dissolution order itself is set out in Article 81. A court may order dissolution where it finds any one of five grounds, beginning with having "committed an act in violation of laws and regulations that is clearly recognized as substantially harming public welfare"[13]. What decides when the order bites is Article 81(5): against a ruling ordering dissolution, an immediate appeal has the effect of staying execution[14]. The sequence noted at the outset — the immediate appeal dismissed on 4 March, the order taking effect the same day — follows from this provision.

Once dissolution is final, liquidation begins. The liquidation comes under court supervision[15], with the liquidator carrying out the procedure. The figure of about 83.4 billion yen was shown to the outside at this stage. Yet nowhere does the law require that "the total be disclosed to the public." The figure reached the world through the liquidator's account, not as the discharge of a legal duty to disclose.

Disclosure is designed in stages

Here a staged design of disclosure comes into view. In ordinary times, non-disclosure; on a dissolution request, tighter quarterly disclosure as a designated corporation; and after dissolution is final, the assets surface in liquidation. The density of disclosure rises by stages as dissolution nears. That the 83.4 billion appeared only at the dramatic stage of dissolution is not because information leaked. It is the designed outcome of two laws stacked together, the Religious Corporations Act and the special-measures law.

The underside is the blank in ordinary times

But this design has an underside. In ordinary times, the public has no means to check a religious corporation's finances. Whether a corporation is trustworthy cannot be known in full until the after-the-fact stage of dissolution. A dissolved corporation's residual assets are first disposed of according to its internal rules[16], and applying them to compensating harm is not treated as a matter of course. That is precisely why a separate special-measures law was needed in 2023. The Religious Corporations Act alone had built in neither victim relief nor disclosure to the public.

Between religious freedom and being checkable

What is in question is the balance between religious freedom and the public's ability to verify. The principle of restraining public power's intrusion into religion is weighty. But that restraint is the flip side of a blank in the means for the public to confirm financial soundness. As long as there is only one operating case of a designated religious corporation, this intermediate-stage system remains almost untested. How far to build a mechanism for the public to confirm financial soundness before it comes to dissolution — that is a question of design that guards religious freedom while heading off harm.

Related Guides

How disclosure and governance are designed into the articles of incorporation differs by corporate form. For the design under a general incorporated association, see Designing Articles of Incorporation for Non-Profit Type Status — Requirements for Tax Benefits（このサイトの記事）.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Liquidation Procedure — Liquidator, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (2026). Liquidator's website, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification

Further Reading

• Q＆A 宗教法人をめぐる税務実務（三訂版） (Q&A on Tax Practice for Religious Corporations, 3rd ed.)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Kinji Nagata, Okura Zaimu Kyokai, November 2025) — a professional guide to the management, operation, accounting, and taxation of religious corporations that contains no evaluation of any particular group; a way to grasp the whole picture of the religious-corporation legal form and its operation. (In Japanese.)

References

Religious Corporations Act (Act No. 126 of 1951) — e-Gov Law Search (1951). Digital Agency, e-Gov Law Search

Special-Measures Law on the Business of the Japan Legal Support Center for the Prompt Relief of Victims of Specified Torts and on the Disposal and Management of Property by Religious Corporations (Act No. 89 of 2023) — e-Gov Law Search (2023). Digital Agency, e-Gov Law Search

Administration of Religious Corporations (keeping, inspection, and filing of documents) — Agency for Cultural Affairs (2026). Agency for Cultural Affairs

Assets disclosed in the liquidation of the former Unification Church (liquidator's report) — Nippon Television Network (NTV News NNN) (2026). NTV News NNN